Musk Assesses Nvidia's Autonomous Driving Technology: "It Will Take More Than 5 to 6 Years"

A Check on Nvidia's Alphamayo
"Traditional Automakers Cannot Design at Scale with Cameras and AI Computers"

Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla, emphasized the technological gap with Nvidia regarding autonomous driving technology, stating that commercialization will require a considerable amount of time.

Yonhap News Agency

According to Musk's X (formerly Twitter) page on January 7 (local time), he replied to a post about Nvidia's autonomous driving platform "Alpamayo" the previous day, pointing out, "It will take several years from the point when autonomous driving starts to work to the point where it becomes much safer than humans."

He further stressed the technological gap by saying, "Traditional automakers will not be able to design large-scale integration of cameras and AI computers into their vehicles like Tesla, even after several years."

He also added, "Therefore, competitive pressure on Tesla may only arise in five to six years, but it will probably take even longer."

Jensen Huang, CEO of Nvidia, unveiled Alpamayo at "CES 2026" in Las Vegas on January 5, explaining that the autonomous driving system can perceive and infer its surroundings similarly to humans. Huang stated that the first vehicle equipped with Alpamayo, the Mercedes-Benz CLA, will be released in the United States within the first quarter of this year, and in the European and Asian markets during the second and third quarters.

In a press conference on January 6, Huang further stated, "I am confident that we will enter Level 4, which is autonomous driving without human intervention, very quickly."

Tesla's Full Self-Driving (FSD) is still at a supervised autonomous driving stage that requires driver intervention. Although Tesla launched a robotaxi service in Austin, Texas in June last year, it has faced difficulties expanding to other regions due to regulatory issues. In San Francisco, Tesla offers a vehicle-hailing service, but since it does not have a permit for unmanned taxis, the vehicles operate with a safety operator on board.